


lethe

by madoqa



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Substance Abuse, basically the disaster siblings need to figure out wtf to do now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26620285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madoqa/pseuds/madoqa
Summary: Five and Klaus share a handle of gin and shit's so fucked that Klaus can't even find it in him to make an underage drinking joke.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Kudos: 35





	lethe

That faint trickling sound—someone must have left the tap running. If Klaus is recalling correctly, Diego was the last one to come check on him. He begged Allison, who was once again the first to discover him, not to tell Luther, or Five, god forbid, and to be fair she kept her word, while still making sure to let Diego know just how comfortable their brother has made himself in this old, abandoned house on the other side of town.

Maybe the two of them noticed Klaus acting a bit differently and feel sorry for him. They feign ignorance when Klaus pretends to leave with everybody else every morning at dawn, claiming he’s tracking a lead in a neighborhood southeast, when in reality he walks once around the block before heading back in and burrowing in Five’s—the comfiest—bed.

It’s truly unfair, having to wake up with a sore neck because the old couch he sleeps on is too short length-wise, especially when Five stands a good head shorter than him. The little shit still has no problem playing “the eldest” card against five thirty-somethings, and knowing it's well earned doesn't make the kinks in his neck hurt any less.

Klaus is up now. Ever since he accidentally cleaned up in Dallas, it’s suddenly harder to ignore things like the doorbell ringing, or the dingy lights in the hall flickering on. He could still sleep through his worse hangovers, sure, but without the supplementary high, he is painfully _present_. After losing Ben—for real this time—he still wants to relapse, his twice-late brother and closest confidant’s sincerest wishes be damned.

Klaus tries hard not to, but he’s thinking about Ben again. He manages to slide out of Five’s bed and shuffle across the hallway to the bathroom. Even his clumsier steps make the floorboards creak only slightly—he never truly grew out of the habits he learned when he was sneaking out of that big house every night as a teen.

“And I’m self-taught too, believe me,” Klaus mutters, absently flipping on the bathroom light. It’s somehow the brightest light in the building, cold and white, making Klaus’ morning confrontations with the mirror somehow even more shameful. His dark circles are back, his scruff spotty, hair is matting to his scalp. He rubs his face, pulling down at the hollow nook under his cheekbones until he can see the red in his eyes, pushing back up until they’re forced closed, then slapping himself _hard_ , until he’s blinking away tears.

 _Calm down, Klaus_.

“Would you shut up, please,” Klaus groans. He lets the bathroom door slam behind him as he finally makes it to the kitchen, thinking briefly about how lucky he is that Five isn’t there to nag him, shivering slightly as his feet make contact with the cold linoleum. He yawns as he clumsily reaches for the faucet to turn off the leaking tap, only to find the sink bone dry. Klaus blinks.

At the same moment, the front door bangs open down the hall, and a thin stream of rainwater falls from the ceiling and very loudly splatters onto the floor. Klaus nearly jumps out of his skin, letting out a hoarse yelp before whipping around, squinting through the darkness at the intruder.

It’s just Diego.

_It’s just Diego._

“Yeah I know, I know it is,” Klaus sighs, still a little tense. He rolls back his shoulders a few times, but it doesn’t help. “And you,” he begins, raising his voice to address the newcomer, pointing a weak finger at him, “do you mind being more considerate toward those of us who like to sleep in?”

Diego just stomps into the kitchen and throws a towel on a puddle in the corner. Klaus vaguely wonders how his brother ever managed to sneak around quietly enough to play hero of the night with such a heavy gait. It takes a couple more seconds of watching Diego move the towel around the floor a few times with his foot before it clicks.

“Oh, my god,” Klaus realizes, and laughs airily, “Diego, I thought that leaking noise was the sink running this whole time.”

“Jesus, Klaus, it’s the rain from last night. I told you I’d be back with some things to fix the ceiling. Were you asleep?”

“No no, I do kind of remember that now,” Klaus mutters, shaking his head. “It’s coming back.”

Klaus leans back against the counter, arms crossed, still only in a pair of too-big boxers that could only belong to Luther. He can feel his eyes unfocusing as he stares into the little circles Diego is making with the towel. Diego is quiet, and Klaus waits, not entirely sure what for. But the silence persists.

Klaus isn’t sure how long it’s been since he’s shared a quiet moment with one of his siblings. Even before Allison found him in Dallas, it was rare to find privacy in that enormous house, surrounded by his relentless devotees. _You have no one but yourself to blame,_ Ben would remind him, peppering in exasperated comments about his narcissism, his addiction to attention, and sometimes his deep rooted fear of being alone, when he was feeling particularly snippy. But in truth, Klaus was suffocating, and Ben was his only tether, to sobriety, to sanity, what have you.

The shock from the time leap, from being dumped violently into an uncanny reflection of their childhood home at the feet of that cold, shadow of his brother, was nothing compared to the weight of the _guilt_. Vanya could reassure him ten thousand times over, that Ben never once blamed Klaus, even through the worst of his lies, his deliberate hiding of him from the others, but she couldn’t erase the nagging thought that maybe, Ben came back to live the life Klaus cruelly dangled in front of him for seventeen years.

_You’re really just going to stand there and not help him, Klaus?_

Klaus shudders, and closes his eyes. Ben never made it out of the interrogation room. He didn’t come back with them from Dallas. He isn’t here, sitting on the wooden stool in the corner listening, helping the rest of them desperately find some way to get their old lives back but happy to at least be spending time with his other siblings again.

This voice is biting, angry, and betrayed. It is mourning.

“Klaus, do me a favor and find a bucket for that corner, alright?” Klaus looks up and Diego comes back into focus; he’s standing by the kitchen entryway. “I think there’s a puddle leaking through the floor upstairs. I need to check out the roof too.”

“Sure sure, yeah I can do that.” Klaus blinks a few times, and Diego starts to leave. “Wait wait, update me before you go, where’s everyone else, where’s... Allison? Have we found anything?”

A single beat, then Diego sighs. “Allison’s at the local precinct, she said she wanted to talk to a cop, see if they know anything. Everyone else is with Five, looking into the upper northside, the place that was in that paper.” He doesn’t answer the last question.

When the six of them fell from Five’s portal and stood face to face with their father, who was alive and well and with custody of some unholy lineup of their superpowered counterparts, Five grabbed Klaus and Vanya and blinked, and the three of them found themselves upstairs in what should have been the hallway to their bedrooms. Five muttered something about not having enough juice to take them outside before vanishing to get the others.

Vanya shattered the window by the fire escape while Klaus frantically rummaged through what used to be his bedroom, looking for any piece of information, a weapon, anything that could somehow help. Diego undoubtedly threw the first knife, the shouts and yells from below echoed through the building. Klaus closed his eyes and clenched his fists instinctively and pictured Ben, feeling around the room for him, but the room remained still, empty even as it filled with a hollow echo of a voice. It was distinct, it was Ben’s, but not quite, and it sent chills down Klaus’ spine.

Klaus didn’t immediately notice when Five reappeared with the briefcase and the rest of their siblings in tow. He saw Five’s face, pale, gaunt, and flush with sweat, and suddenly he was being scooped up by Luther. All six of them climbed through the window and stumbled down the fire escape, and then Klaus was running, the distant yells quickly melting into sounds of city and traffic, the lights from the streetlamps washing the backs of his brothers and sisters in a harsh glow.

It wasn’t until they’d all run out of steam and stopped in a narrow alley to rest and regroup that Klaus realized he was still clutching whatever he’d grabbed back at the mansion—a black retractable cane, and a small empty photo frame. Whether it was empty when Klaus picked it up, or the photo slipped out as they stumbled through the dirty streets, he didn’t know. It wasn’t long—or maybe it was hours and hours—before they eventually ended up in a dark, abandoned building with a leaky ceiling and a too-short couch. Five took the cane 'to examine' and Klaus sat on the back steps the first few nights, studying the pattern welded into the gold, trying to figure out if the curves were supposed to be tentacles. On the third night, he unceremoniously tossed it into the dumpster. As for the house itself, Five muttered something cryptic about it being an old Commission base that they eventually stopped using. 'Because… well, it sucks,' he very eloquently put it. No one pushed it any further, and that was that.

“Klaus.”

Klaus realizes, startled, that tears are spilling down his cheeks. He sloppily wipes them away with his wrists, sniffling slightly, before he feels Diego’s hand is on his shoulder.

“Oh, how kind of you,” Klaus laughs weakly, his nose stuffy, “but don’t worry about me. You should go take a look upstairs before this whole place is flooded and we have to leave. God forbid…” He tacks the last part on in a sarcastic mumble. Diego is still for a few more seconds, watching Klaus carefully as Klaus smiles back at him, before nodding, giving his shoulder a small pat, and heading back out toward the door. Just as he’s about to shut it behind him, he stops.

“Don’t forget to get that bucket.”

Klaus opens his mouth to respond, but Diego continues.

“And promise me you’ll stay out of the liquor stores and shady alleys.”

“You are, this time, asking too much of me, dear brother,” Klaus says back, but the door shuts before he can finish, and save the muffled sound of the ceiling dripping onto the dirty towel in the corner, the house once again fills with silence.

Pulling up and perching on top of the corner stool, Klaus contemplates defying his too often infuriatingly straight-edge brother’s wishes. He has certainly had more than a few drinks since they got back to 2019. Most of them were with Allison and Vanya, but a few were unexpectedly, with Five. The first night, Diego and Luther insisted they go somewhere farther away, that it wasn’t safe to stay in the city as long as dad was back. Klaus could only watch as the two of them worked each other up, panic edging into both of their voices. 'Did you not see that fucking creepy fake Ben in there, Five? We’re lucky we got out of there alive, staying here is asking them to find us, are you out of your mind?!'

Five was quiet, uncharacteristically so, and let Diego and Luther continue yelling, at him and at each other. Klaus didn’t even notice Vanya quietly take a seat next to him on the couch and take his hand into hers. He stared ahead, at nothing, and two pairs of eyes stared back. One set was soft, beautiful, and warm, despite his heavy lids, or the tired creases in the outer corners. They almost glowed, shining the same way they did under those lights in Saigon. The other pair was cold, bitter. Klaus spent half his life getting used to Ben’s disapproving looks, the countless eyerolls and stressed brows. But not even in Klaus’ worst moments, all the awful decisions he made, whether he had given up or just wanted to spite his brother, did Ben look at him quite like that.

That night, Allison and Vanya turned in early, Luther shut himself in one of the rooms, and Diego stormed out the house, slamming the door behind him. Five rummaged through the kitchen before taking a seat next to Klaus on the back steps and setting a handle of gin on the broken concrete between them. Klaus couldn’t find it in him to crack a joke about underage drinking. They just sat together, sounds of traffic still bustling in the distance, passing the gin back and forth. When the moon peeked out from behind the clouds, Klaus caught a glimpse of Five’s face, and for the first time, Five looked his age—impossibly weary, on the brink of collapse. Klaus ran his fingers over the grooves in the tiny stolen frame, thinking about Dave, about Ben, feeling his eldest brother’s warmth between the night chills. He finished off the remainder of the gin, and Five let him.

It must be nearing evening by now. Klaus sits still with his eyes closed and listens to the dull plips of the rainwater, waiting, concentrating. He knows Allison has an expensive bottle of cabernet stashed away somewhere in hers and Vanya’s room. There might still be some more old Commission booze left over somewhere. If nothing else, a half pack of sterlings is nestled with a dirty lighter in one of his coat pockets, the old thing lying in a crumpled mess on Five’s floor.

Klaus doesn't open his eyes. He exhales slowly, and searches for an old Commission agent, seedy guys who took shelter in the winter, a runaway kid who bit off more than he could chew and got in with some shady people, anyone. He searches the dusty basement, all through the almost unlivable second floor, and feels around the cold, hollow kitchen. He searches for Ben, without thinking about it, and he doesn’t come, and the silence remains unbroken.

It might be Klaus’ most harmful reflex to date.

Klaus is alone as he shuffles back to Five’s room to forage for clothes, mumbling to himself in an effort to fill up the quiet. He yawns widely, and fights the urge to sink back into Five’s inviting bed as he rummages through the pile of laundry on the floor.

“Okay, alright Klaus. Let’s go find a bucket.”

**Author's Note:**

> it's my first time writing in almost 5 years and i made myself sad.  
> and i imagine it will only get worse as i keep going


End file.
